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Ambati Rayudu showed how it’s done against the best bowling line-up in the tournament as he ran havoc at the MCA Stadium in Pune to demolish the star-studded Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling attack slamming his maiden IPL ton in 62 balls for Chennai Super Kings. Riding on the superb opening partnership of 134 runs by Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu Chennai won the match by a comfortable 8 wickets with MS Dhoni scoring the winning runs. The victory pushed them closer to the playoffs as they cemented their position on the second spot in the IPL points table. Rayudu who has taken the season by storm was outstanding with the bat as he delivered a top-notch knock yet again and ensured he got his side home. Twitter hailed the Hyderabad batsman as he justified his selection in the Indian team with a magnificent performance.

Rayudu almost played a second fiddle to Shane Watson in the powerplay overs before taking on Siddarth Kaul in the 7th over where he earned 16 runs and got the momentum going his way. He didn’t stop from there and continued playing his shots fearlessly against the likes of Kaul, Bhuvneshwar and Rashid Khan. After bagging his half-century in 31 balls, it took exactly 31 more deliveries to complete his long overdue maiden IPL ton. On the course of his hundred, he smashed 7 boundaries and 7 sixes and reached the 100 run mark with a single off the 5th ball of the 19th over from Bhuvneshwar. He became only the second Indian after Rishabh Pant to bag a century in the IPL this season. Twitter, as expected, hailed the warrior who single-handedly ripped apart the best bowling line-up in the tournament.

Here are some tweets:

Rayudu’s 100 and Dhoni’s hand towards the end meant CSK were comfortably past the target with an over to spare. Earlier put into bat Kane Williamson 51 (39) and Shikhar Dhawan 79(49) guided SRH to a good 179 in 20 overs with some late knocking form Deepak Hooda who scored an 11-ball 21 but credit to CSK bowlers who didn’t let the openers get a quick start and conceded just 29 in the powerplay. Once Dhawan and Williamson started looking dangerous they were dismissed in successive overs by Bravo and Shardul Thakur respectively to pull things back. The win if not assures CSK of a place in the playoffs certainly makes them the second-best team after their opponents to seal a playoff berth.